Origin and cache server cooperation for compute-intensive content delivery

ABSTRACT

This document describes systems, methods and apparatus for locating an object and/or processed versions of that object in a CDN cache system. When a CDN server needs to send a forward request to an origin server to retrieve an object, the CDN server can append a ‘cache hint’ (sometimes referred to herein as a pointer or as ‘reverse cookie’) to its request. The cache hint preferably includes information that will be stored at the origin server and provided to other CDN servers that subsequently ask for the same object. Preferably the information is a pointer that will enable the object to be located within the CDN and/or enable the location of modified version of the object that have already been created and stored within the CDN.

BACKGROUND Technical Field

This application relates generally to content delivery networks and tothe delivery of objects to users over computer networks.

Brief Description of the Related Art

Content delivery networks (CDNs) are known in the art. Typically CDNsemploy a set of proxy servers distributed across the Internet. A givenserver in the CDN receives a request for an object (e.g., an HTMLdocument, an image file, scripts, cascading style sheets, videos, XMLdocuments) from an end user client device. The server checks whether ithas a valid copy (i.e., unexpired) of the object in its local cache. Ifso, it can serve the request from the cache. If not, it issues a forwardrequest to obtain the content from an origin server.

In some implementations the CDN may arrange servers in a cachehierarchy. Cache hierarchies are known the art. In a typical cachehierarchy, each client-facing server has a cache parent (or cache parentgroup), which may be statically or dynamically assigned. The childserver goes to the cache parent to see if it has the object before goingto the origin. If the parent does not have the object in cache either,then either the parent or the child server goes to origin. Some cachehierarchies have additional layers. For more information on cachehierarchies in CDNs, see U.S. Pat. No. 7,376,716 and see asoChankhunthod et al., “A Hierarchical Internet Object Cache”, Proceedingsof the USENIX 1996 Annual Technical Conference, San Diego, Calif. 1996,the disclosure of both of which is incorporated herein by reference forall purposes. For information on how cache parents can be dynamicallychosen (and cache hierarchies formed based on network conditions anddistances), see U.S. Pat. No. 7,274,658 the disclosure of which isincorporated by reference herein for all purposes.

It is costly, from both a performance and load perspective, to go backto the origin for an object. This cost is particularly high when the CDNmodifies an object after retrieval. For example, a CDN may offer aservice that optimizes an object for a client device based on thingssuch as client device type, capabilities, bandwidth, geographiclocation, or other characteristic. Images represent significant portionof the data on a website, so optimizing an image for a particularrequesting client device can yield significant benefits.

As another example, a CDN may offer an image management service thatcreates a set of images derived from a master image in a mannercontrolled and/or configured for the website owner. Given onehigh-resolution image, a CDN image management service may create severalversions of that image (e.g., high resolution, low-resolution, varioussizes, watermarked, recompression, and so on). The resulting set ofderived images can be stored in the cloud by the CDN. Future requests byclient devices can be served from this set. Preferably, the set ofimages also can be accessed by the content provider enterprise forcreative development purposes.

As a final example, a CDN may offer a multimedia transcoding service formultimedia presentations. This is analogous to the image processingcase, but even more compute-intensive.

It is wasteful for a CDN to repeatedly execute the kinds of processingdescribed above if the original objects and/or their processed versionsare already available somewhere in the CDN platform. However, it isdifficult to create an efficient system that enables a given server inthe CDN to know if such content is already available, and if so, whereto find it. While one could utilize a variety of indexing and lookupmechanisms within the CDN, such systems are likely to impose moreoverhead that they save in a large-scale CDN with massive amounts ofobjects that are dynamically changing over time as content providersupdate their websites.

The teachings hereof address this technical problem. The teachingshereof can be used to mitigate the cost of a CDN repeatedly asking theorigin for an object, particularly in the case of an object that ismodified after retrieval from the origin. The teachings hereof alsoprovide other benefits and improvements that will become apparent inview of this disclosure.

A general background on CDNs is now provided.

A “content delivery network” or “CDN” is often operated and managed by aservice provider. The service provider typically provides the contentdelivery service on behalf of third parties. A distributed system ofthis type typically refers to a collection of autonomous computerslinked by a network or networks, together with the software, systems,protocols and techniques designed to facilitate various services, suchas content delivery or the support of outsourced site infrastructure.This infrastructure is shared by multiple tenants, e.g., the contentproviders. The infrastructure is generally used for the storage,caching, or transmission of content—such as web pages, streaming mediaand applications—on behalf of such content providers or other tenants.The platform may also provide ancillary technologies used therewithincluding, without limitation, DNS query handling, provisioning, datamonitoring and reporting, content targeting, personalization, andbusiness intelligence. The CDN's components may be located at nodes thatare publicly-routable on the Internet, within or adjacent nodes that arelocated in mobile networks, in or adjacent enterprise-based privatenetworks, or in any combination thereof.

In a known system such as that shown in FIG. 1, a distributed computersystem 100 is configured as a content delivery network (CDN) and has aset of computer machines 102 distributed around the Internet. Typically,most of the machines are configured as servers and located near the edgeof the Internet, i.e., at or adjacent end user access networks. Anetwork operations command center (NOCC) 104 may be used to administerand manage operations of the various machines in the system. Third partysites affiliated with content providers, such as web site 106, offloaddelivery of content (e.g., HTML or other markup language files, embeddedpage objects, streaming media, software downloads, and the like) to thedistributed computer system 100 and, in particular, to the servers(which are sometimes referred to as content servers, or sometimes as“edge” servers in light of the possibility that they are near an “edge”of the Internet). Such servers may be grouped together into a point ofpresence (POP) 107.

Typically, content providers offload their content delivery by aliasing(e.g., by a DNS CNAME) given content provider domains or sub-domains todomains that are managed by the service provider's authoritative domainname service. End user client devices 122 that desire such content maybe directed to the distributed computer system to obtain that contentmore reliably and efficiently. The CDN servers 102 respond to the clientdevice requests, for example by obtaining requested content from a localcache, from another CDN server 102, from the origin server 106, or othersource.

Although not shown in detail in FIG. 1, the distributed computer systemmay also include other infrastructure, such as a distributed datacollection system 108 that collects usage and other data from the CDNservers, aggregates that data across a region or set of regions, andpasses that data to other back-end systems 110, 112, 114 and 116 tofacilitate monitoring, logging, alerts, billing, management and otheroperational and administrative functions. Distributed network agents 118monitor the network as well as the server loads and provide network,traffic and load data to a DNS query handling mechanism 115, which isauthoritative for content domains being managed by the CDN, and whichacts as a request routing mechanism to direct clients to a selected CDNserver 102. A distributed data transport mechanism 120 may be used todistribute control information (sometimes referred to as “metadata”) tothe CDN servers.

A more detailed illustration of an embodiment of a CDN server 102 isprovided in FIG. 2. As illustrated in FIG. 2, a given machine 200 in theCDN comprises commodity hardware (e.g., a microprocessor) 202 running anoperating system kernel (such as Linux® or variant) 204 that supportsone or more applications 206 a-n. To facilitate content deliveryservices, for example, given machines typically run a set ofapplications, such as an HTTP (web) proxy server 207, a name service208, a local monitoring process 210, a distributed data collectionprocess 212, and the like. The HTTP proxy server 207 (sometimes referredto herein as a HTTP proxy for short) is a kind of web server and ittypically includes a manager process for managing a local cache anddelivery of content from the machine. For streaming media, the machinemay include one or more media servers, as required by the supportedmedia formats.

A CDN server 102 may be configured to provide one or more extendedcontent delivery features, preferably on a domain-specific,content-provider-specific basis, preferably using configuration filesthat are distributed to the CDN servers using a configuration system. Agiven configuration file preferably is XML-based and includes a set ofcontent handling rules and directives that facilitate one or moreadvanced content handling features. The configuration file may bedelivered to the CDN server via the data transport mechanism. U.S. Pat.No. 7,240,100, the contents of which are hereby incorporated byreference, describe a useful infrastructure for delivering and managingCDN server content control information and this and other controlinformation (again sometimes referred to as “metadata”) can beprovisioned by the CDN service provider itself, or (via an extranet orthe like) the content provider customer who operates the origin server.U.S. Pat. No. 7,111,057, incorporated herein by reference, describes anarchitecture for purging content from the CDN.

Preferably, the CDN operates a DNS infrastructure to route clientrequests (i.e., request routing service) to a selected CDN server 102.In a typical operation, a content provider identifies a content providerdomain or sub-domain that it desires to have served by the CDN. The CDNservice provider associates (e.g., via a canonical name, or CNAME, orother aliasing technique) the content provider domain with a CDNhostname, and the CDN provider then provides that CDN hostname to thecontent provider. When a DNS query to the content provider domain orsub-domain is received at the content provider's domain name servers,those servers respond by returning the CDN hostname. That networkhostname the CDN, and that hostname is then resolved through the CDNname service. To that end, the CDN domain name service returns one ormore IP addresses (via consultation with the mapmaker shown in FIG. 1).The requesting client application (e.g., a web browser) then makes acontent request (e.g., via HTTP or HTTPS) to a CDN server 102 associatedwith the IP address. The request includes a host header that includesthe original content provider domain or sub-domain. Upon receipt of therequest with the host header, the CDN server 102 checks itsconfiguration file to determine whether the content domain or sub-domainrequested is actually being handled by the CDN. If so, the CDN server102 applies its content handling rules and directives for that domain orsub-domain as specified in the configuration. These content handlingrules and directives may be located within an XML-based “metadata”configuration file, as described previously. Thus, the domain name orsubdomain name in the request is bound to (associated with) a particularconfiguration file, which contains the rules, settings, etc., that theCDN server 102 should use when processing that request.

A CDN may have a variety of other features and adjunct components. Forexample the CDN may include a network storage subsystem (sometimesreferred to as “NetStorage”) which may be located in a networkdatacenter accessible to the CDN servers, such as described in U.S. Pat.No. 7,472,178, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein byreference. The CDN may operate a server cache hierarchy to provideintermediate caching of customer content; one such cache hierarchysubsystem is described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,376,716, the disclosure ofwhich is incorporated herein by reference. Communications between CDNservers and/or across the overlay may be enhanced or improved usingtechniques such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,820,133, 7,274,658,7,660,296, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein byreference.

For live streaming delivery, the CDN may include a live deliverysubsystem, such as described in U.S. Pat. No. 7,296,082, and U.S.Publication No. 2011/0173345, as well as a transcoding system asdescribed in U.S. Pat. No. 9,432,704, the disclosures of which areincorporated herein by reference.

SUMMARY

This document describes systems, methods and apparatus for locating anobject and/or processed versions of that object in a CDN cache system.When a CDN server needs to send a forward request to an origin server toretrieve an object, the CDN server can append a ‘cache hint’ (sometimesreferred to herein as a pointer or as ‘reverse cookie’) to its request.The cache hint preferably includes information that will be stored atthe origin server and provided to other CDN servers that subsequentlyask for the same object. Preferably the information is a pointer thatwill enable the object to be located within the CDN and/or enable thelocation of modified version of the object that have already beencreated and stored within the CDN.

The cache hint can comprise an IP address, for example. The IP addresscan point to the CDN server that is making the request for the object,or the cache hierarchy with which that CDN server is associated, or aCDN object-processing asset (such as a image processing server ortranscoder) that will process the retrieved object for that CDN server,a network storage component that will be used to store the object oncefetched from the origin, or some other CDN asset. The IP address may bea virtual IP address.

Alternatively the cache hint could be a hostname that a DNSinfrastructure associated with the CDN will resolve to locate theappropriate cache, cache hierarchy, object processing component or otherCDN asset. Note that the cache hint can contain multiple pieces ofinformation of varying specificity, e.g., an IP address, a clusteridentifier, a cache hierarchy identifier, and so on.

It is noted that in some implementations, the information in the cachehint could be encrypted so that information about the CDN and inparticular the location of CDN assets is not exposed by the cache hint.In this approach, the origin server essentially stores and opaque ‘blob’of data on behalf of the CDN and hands it out in response to requests.Encryption can be done using any standard encryption method, such as asecure hash, e.g. SHA-256, or the like.

As mentioned above, if and when the origin is contacted by another CDNserver (referred to in this example as the ‘second’ CDN server forclarity) for the same object, the origin provides the cache hint insteadof the actual object. This provides a processing and bandwidth savingsfor the origin. Moreover the second CDN server saves time and processingbecause upon receiving the cache hint can contact the CDN asset that thepointer in the cache hint identifies. This means that the second CDNserver can read the pointer and, e.g., send a request to the IP addressor resolve the hostname to find an IP address, as the case may be, orotherwise follow the pointer to the object.

Preferably the cache hint is accompanied by a time to live (TTL) value.Once the TTL value expires the cache hint is no longer valid to locatean object previously fetched from the origin. The CDN server receivingthe cache hint can check the TTL so see if the hint is valid and if not,re-request the object from origin.

Preferably, however, the origin is able to read the TTL and determinewhether the cache hint has expired before sending it instead of theactual object. In other words, at least the TTL for the cache hint maybe stored in the clear, even if the cache hint itself is encrypted. Inthis way, if a second CDN server receives the cache hint from an origin,the copy of the object in the CDN located by the pointer is likely to becurrent and not evicted from a cache. If the cache hint is expired thenthe origin can obtain the actual object from its storage device andserve it to the second CDN server, similar to a conventional web serveroperation. In addition, the origin can then store the cache hint thatwas included with the second CDN server's request. This means that theexpired cache hint is updated and replaced with the second CDN server'scache hint, as the second CDN server is receiving the current copy ofthe object. The origin then begins to provide cache hints pointing tothe second CDN server (or to a cache hierarchy or processing componentassociated with it, etc.).

As those skilled in the art will recognize, the foregoing descriptionmerely refers to examples of the invention. There are many variations ofthe inventive teachings described above and otherwise herein. The claimsalone define the scope of the invention.

While there are a variety of tools and features incorporated intomodem-day HTTP and web servers, they do not address the technicalproblem solved by this invention, and they are distinct from theteachings hereof.

HTTP Cookies are known the art, for example. HTTP servers arefundamentally designed to be stateless. A cookie can be used to helpsimplify end-to-end application logic between the client (e.g., abrowser) and server. From a high level view, this can be considered acollaboration between client and server to make the entire system moreefficient. However, cookies are created by the server and stored by aclient. The teachings hereof contemplate collaboration between a cacheserver and an origin server, where a cache hint is generated by thecache server (acting as a client) and kept by the origin server forlater use. The origin server preferably does not know the content ofcache hint. Further, the existence of the cache hint alters the behaviorof the origin server; conventional cookies are not used by clients insuch a way, much less as described herein.

HTTP server hints are known in the art. For example, Google has proposeda project called Server Push and Server Hint as part of an umbrellaproject, the Chromium Projects. The “Server Push” functions to push someunrequested web objects to the client by the server in anticipation thatthe client would request the objects very soon. The “Server Hint” letsthe client know the availability of some unrequested web objects by theclient in anticipation that the client might want to download the webobjects soon. As the purposes manifest, the conventional HTTP serverhints are different from the teachings proposed in this paper.

HTTP client hints are known in the art. There is a proposal about HTTPclient hint (See IETF—HTTP Client Hints, I Grigorik, ed.). This idea isto allow and encourage the user agent, e.g., a browser, to explicitlyexpress the capability of the end user client device at the moment ofHTTP request so that the server can accordingly adapt the content to thephysical device specifics. The purposes of “client hint” are actually inline with end user device characterization already available with majorCDNs, e.g., Akamai Technologies Inc.'s Edge Device Characterization.Such conventional end user device characterization and client hints aredistinct from the teachings hereof.

HTTP cache-control headers are known in the art. They are used by aserver to define the valid caching period or the authorized lifetime ofthe web object down the delivery path. But this is distinct from theteachings hereof.

The teachings hereof may be realized in a variety of systems, methods,apparatus, and non-transitory computer-readable media. It should also benoted that the allocation of functions to particular machines is notlimiting, as the functions recited herein may be combined or splitamongst different machines in a variety of ways.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention will be more fully understood from the following detaileddescription taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, inwhich:

FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram illustrating one embodiment of adistributed computer system configured as a CDN;

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram illustrating one embodiment of a machineon which a CDN server in the system of FIG. 1 can be implemented;

FIG. 3 is a conceptual diagram of an image file;

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of an image server network in a CDN;

FIG. 5 provides a typical network implementation of the image servernetwork shown in FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram of cache groups, in one embodiment;

FIG. 7 is a high level workflow for image optimization and imagedelivery in a CDN, in one embodiment;

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram illustrating a data center with clustermachines belonging to multiple cache groups;

FIG. 9 is a schematic diagram illustrating the cost of object sharingacross cache groups; and,

FIG. 10 is a block diagram illustrating hardware in a computer systemthat may be used to implement the teachings hereof.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

The following description sets forth embodiments of the invention toprovide an overall understanding of the principles of the structure,function, manufacture, and use of the methods and apparatus disclosedherein. The systems, methods and apparatus described in this applicationand illustrated in the accompanying drawings are non-limiting examples;the claims alone define the scope of protection that is sought. Thefeatures described or illustrated in connection with one exemplaryembodiment may be combined with the features of other embodiments. Suchmodifications and variations are intended to be included within thescope of the present invention. All patents, patent applicationpublications, other publications, and references cited anywhere in thisdocument are expressly incorporated herein by reference in theirentirety, and for all purposes. The term “e.g.” used throughout is usedas an abbreviation for the non-limiting phrase “for example.”

Basic familiarity with well-known web page, streaming, and networkingtechnologies and terms, such as HTML, URL, XML, AJAX, CSS, HTTP versions1.1 and 2, TCP/IP, and UDP, is assumed. The term “server” is used hereinto refer to hardware (a computer configured as a server, also referredto as a “server machine”) with server software running on such hardware(e.g., a web server). Likewise, the terms “client” and “client device”is used herein to refer to hardware in combination with software (e.g.,a browser or player application). While context may indicate thehardware or the software exclusively, should such distinction beappropriate, the teachings hereof can be implemented in any combinationof hardware and software.

The teachings hereof may be implemented in a server and in particular ina CDN server 102, 200 of the type described with respect to FIGS. 1 and2.

High-Cost Objects

The following describes the optimization of webpage image files in aCDN. This is but one example to illustrate the nature and challenges ofcaching objects that must be retrieved from an origin server andprocessed in the CDN. Images for a web page are but one example.

Web Images

Web images are usually created to be rendered at the end user's clientdevice. The typical user client device includes desktop computers andhandheld devices such as smartphones and tablets. A set of standards fordigital image coding and image formatting together with necessary imageobject retrieval communication protocols as part of HTTP have been wellestablished. As long as web image files are formatted in somestandardized way, the end user's client device should be able to accessthem on the web and open them locally on the end user's client devicefor viewing. This decoupling between publishers and consumer devices isan important factor to a wide adoption of web images by most web sites.

Although there are many ways to format an image file, generally imagefiles are an array or a grid of pixels with some metadata. The pixel isthe smallest unit of image file construction and rendering. Lowresolution images have a low number of bits to represent one pixelwhereas high resolution images have a high number of bits for each pixelrepresentation. In fact, non pixel-based image file constructionmethods, like vector graphics, need to be converted to a pixel-basedformat to be properly displayed on the end user's client device. In theindustry, this kind of image format conversion is called rasterization.Raster graphics is the general term to indicate the pixel-based formatof image files. The most popular consumer display device type, LCD(Liquid Crystal Display), is also fundamentally designed to show animage in a pixel by pixel method. This generally pixel-based approachnot only dictates the way the image is constructed but also the way itis displayed on an electronic screen. Notably, each image element, apixel, is rendered on an electronic display panel independently ofothers. One corrupted element would not block other elements from beingproperly displayed. FIG. 3 shows a conceptual diagram of an image. Thelabel “P” represents each pixel, and an image is a collection of a largenumber of pixels. Each pixel is created in some sequence and rendered onthe end user's device in some sequence, too.

Web Image Rendering

While the decoupling of web image construction and end user renderinghas been a key to the success of images on the web, the decouplingnecessarily brings another new challenge, the mismatch of overallcapability between production and rendering equipment. For example, thesize of the original image may or may not well fit the size of the enduser display panel in the framework of the web page. Also, theresolution of the original image can be higher than that of the end userclient device.

It is therefore desirable—and common in the industry—to create manydifferent versions of the original image to allow them to best fit eachof the range of end user client device capacities. One way to recognizethe capability of the end user client device is to utilize the HTTPrequest message header “User Agent”, where the requester usually putsthe information about the entity, which is sending the HTTP request; onecan also rely on the intelligence of a CDN provider about the end userclient device and network connection type. In many cases, the User Agentreveals the browser name and version, which can be used for the end userclient device characterization purposes.

Given knowledge about the client device, generally speaking, imageservice logic can execute as follows (assuming no CDN in the deliverypath):

-   -   1) The end user client device sends an HTTP request message to a        web server;    -   2) The web server investigates the user-agent in the request        message;    -   3) CDN provider pinpoints the overall capability and network        type of the end user device for the web server;    -   4) The web server selects a version of the image object, which        best fits the capability of the end user client device;    -   5) If a suitable version is not found, the web server can create        one in the course of reply dynamically;    -   6) The web server sends an HTTP reply message back to the end        user with the selected or newly created version.

Image Optimization by a CDN

Creating and maintaining a comprehensive set of versions for each andevery website image for the variety of end user devices is a practicalchallenge for many website owners. One solution is to use a third partyentity, which is specialized to handle image creation, maintenance anddelivery to all end users on a global scale. The Image Manager productprovided by Akamai Technologies, Inc., is one such solution.

Typically a third party entity (e.g. a CDN) deploys image servers on aglobal scale, and utilizes the image servers for the full cycle of webimage creation, maintenance, and delivery to end users regardless of theend user location. With such a third party in place, the image servicelogic changes as follows:

-   -   1) The web site owner changes the URL for the image to the third        party entity    -   2) The end user client device sends an HTTP request message for        the image to the third party server;    -   3) The third party server determines the capability of the end        user client device with the user-agent information in the        request message and the type of network, to which the end user        is connected;    -   4) The third party server selects or dynamically creates a        version of the image object that best fits the overall        capability of the end user client device; the third party server        sends an HTTP reply message back to the end user with the        selected or the version that was dynamically created.

Offline Image Processing for Improved Performance

Creating a best-fit version for the end user's client device capabilitydynamically, i.e., in the course of generating an HTTP response,negatively impacts the overall web page download performance. This isbecause the image conversion takes some non-negligible amount of time.One image format conversion can easily take a few hundreds ofmilliseconds. One solution to this problem is to create, in real-time,all possible derivative versions of original images to the variety ofend user device, and, cache them all on the CDN. But this approach isproblematic: creating a bundle of derivatives of an original imageusually takes longer than one single image conversion, and may evenextend into the range of a couple seconds, or even into the tens ofseconds depending on the perceptual quality of the images desired by thecustomer. This means that creation of an image bundle as part of areal-time HTTP request/response chain is likely to take up a sizableportion of the entire page download time. A bundle typically takes a fewtens of image versions reflecting the variety of end user clientdevices. The bundle size will only increase as the range of end userclient devices continues to expand and diversify. To satisfy the needsof high delivery performance, including low page download time, and theneeds of bundle creation of a given original image, an image servernetwork of the sort shown in FIG. 4 can be used in the CDN.

In FIG. 4, a real-time image server in the CDN receives an imagerequest, for which the CDN does not have a copy, fetches the originalimage from the content provider, creates an interim version of image (orperhaps the unmodified original image), includes this interim versionimage in the HTTP response message, and finally creates a job for theoffline server to create a bundle of derivative images of the originalimage. The offline image server in turn creates a bundle of derivativeimages of the given image, in which each derivative version is theoptimized version to a specific end user device. Upon completion, theoffline image server uploads the derivative bundle to the CDN server,which requested the image first.

Though not optimized as fully as the derivative image bundle, theinterim version of the image can be created relatively quickly, e.g., onthe order of 100-200 milliseconds in some cases, satisfying theperformance needs of the system.

With this image server network architecture in place, the web imageservice logic can proceed as follows (with reference to FIG. 4):

-   -   1) REQUEST 1: a CDN server (labeled CDN node) receives an image        request from the end user side;    -   2) REQUEST 2: finding no valid copy in cache, the CDN server        issues a forward image request to the real-time image server;    -   3) REQUEST 3: the real-time image server issues a forward image        request to the content provider origin for the original image;    -   4) RESPONSE 4: the origin responds to the real-time image server        with the original image;    -   5) RESPONSE 5: the real-time image server creates an interim        version which better fits the end user's client device, and        responds to the CDN server with the newly created interim        version;    -   6) REQUEST 6: the real-time image server sends the original        image to the offline image server 406;    -   7) RESPONSE 7: the CDN server responds toward the end user with        the newly created interim version;    -   8) RESPONSE 8: the offline image server creates a complete        derivative bundle of the original image, and, uploads the bundle        to the CDN server that initiated the whole chain of image        requests and responses;    -   9) From this time forward—unless and until the original images        changes—the CDN server has a full set of optimized images to the        variety of end user client devices, and hence for those the CDN        server can respond to future requests directly without further        consulting the real-time image server REQUEST 6 and RESPONSE 7        are likely to happen in parallel in the time domain.

FIG. 5 provides a typical implementation of the image server networkshown in FIG. 4. It is noted that the labels for “content deliverynetwork A” through “content delivery network D” are meant to indicatedifferent CDN assets/infrastructure of a single CDN service provider,not necessarily different ones.

The CDN may have other nodes between the real-time image server and theorigin, between the real-time and offline image servers, and, betweenthe offline image server and origin. The communications described abovein connection with FIG. 4 can be directed through these additional nodes(e.g., relayed through). The nodes can provide a degree of caching, aswell. While presence of such nodes between each pair of network elementscan appear to be overhead-inducing, in fact it can provide freedom inwhere to deploy each network element. The CDN optimizes data transferbetween each pair of network elements on the globe. See for example,U.S. Pat. No. 6,820,133, U.S. Patent Publication No. 2016/0150055, andU.S. Pat. No. 7,660,296). In the network architecture shown in FIGS.4-5, the real-time image server sends a request to the offline imageserver with an original image. This requires a rather large storage atthe offline image server side because the offline image server takesrelatively long time to produce a bundle of derivative images of a givenoriginal image. To avoid the large storage problem, one option is toregister the bundle request with the offline image server so that theoffline image server can later fetch the original image from the contentprovider for the bundle creation when it can schedule the job of bundlecreation. Note that FIGS. 4-5 represent one possible implementation. Inother implementations, the two logical entities of real-time and offlineimage servers can be implemented on one single server depending on thecapability of each individual server, as those skilled in the art willunderstand. For example, in some deployment, the intermediate nodesrepresented by content delivery networks B, D in FIG. 4 may not bepresent due to the proximity between the image servers and origin.

Caches for Global Performance

Now described is the role of caching in the image delivery architecture,and in particular the operation of going forward to the origin server toretrieve the original image. As described earlier, when a server (imageserver or otherwise) experiences a cache miss and needs to go back toorigin, it is known to employ cache groups, and in particular cachehierarchies, of the kind described in (for example), U.S. Pat. No.7,376,716, and Chankhunthod et al., “A Hierarchical Internet ObjectCache”, Proceedings of the USENIX 1996 Annual Technical Conference, SanDiego, Calif. 1996. The parent cache can be chosen in a dynamic manner,based on network distances and conditions, such as described in U.S.Pat. No. 7,274,658.

In practice, cache groups are logically segmented from one another inorder to optimize both the cache footprint, hit ratio and downloadperformance. For a particular origin, therefore, depending on thegeographic coverage of the content there can be multiple distinct cachegroups. Assume for illustrative purposes that the origin were located ina central place in the United States. End users from the West Coast andfrom the East Coast can be served by two independent cache groups, oneoptimized for each end user population. In this scenario, there is atleast one copy of a frequently accessed web object in each of the twocache groups. While the cache footprint will grow by a factor of two,the download latency is bounded to the latency from the central locationto each coastal end user population.

Another example: consider a global social media website, with cachegroups segmented and optimized for each country, continent or economicblock. In this example, there can be many copies of the same web objectacross the cache groups at any given moment.

Some globally-focused content providers establish origin servers inmultiple geographical areas, so as to serve each end user group at bestperformance in page download time. In this case, the content providertypically must maintain content consistency among origin servers indifferent groups. As a result, distinct and independent cache groupswill naturally be created to serve each of the large end user groups.Architecturally, the resultant global image cache groups may look likeFIG. 6.

In FIG. 6, each cache group is constructed with some logical hierarchyfrom the end user group toward the origin. This means that there aremany cache servers located closely to the end user group, and, fewercache servers toward the origin, in a classic cache hierarchyarrangement. This kind of hierarchical cache is known in the art andcommonly appears in both Internet cache networks and between CPU andmemory in computer architectures, where higher level entities are taskedwith serving the cache misses from the lower level entities.

Each cache hierarchy in FIG. 6 is a logically independent cache groupconstructed with some hierarchy.

Cache Independence Problem

The independence of each logically separate cache group is by design forperformance. Even though a server in a given cache hierarchy mayexperience a cache miss, and the object that it needs may be in anothercache hierarchy, finding that cached object in the other cache hierarchyrequires a very large-scale and infrastructure to support that search ina prompt manner. Such an infrastructure could be based on a DNS-styleservice inside of the entire CDN infrastructure, which could pinpointwhere a desired copy of web object currently resides. Technicallyhowever this kind of cache sharing on a global scale would beprohibitively costly due firstly to the very large number of web objectsthat can be present in the global content delivery networks at any givenmoment, secondly to the high percentage of churning of the cached webobjects, and, lastly the extended network latency when a found cachedobject is far away. Practically therefore it is has conventionallythought to be economically and performance-wise much more feasible toissue a forward request to a cache parent and if further misses occur upto the top of the cache hierarchy, ultimately up to the content providerorigin. For these reasons, in the industry it is typical tostrategically deploy cache servers at the top of a hierarchy close tothe content provider origin, so as to minimize the forwarding-inducednetwork latency. Cache hierarchies for images are no different.

Cost of Image Processing

Cache lookups for images (e.g., in a system such as described in FIGS.4-5) incur significant workload throughout the chain of HTTP request andresponse. Each request forwarded to the origin is responded with anoriginal image. The original image is firstly processed by the real-timeimage server once for an immediate response with a semi-optimizedversion, and, secondly processed by the offline image server for thecreation of a comprehensive set of optimized versions to the variety ofend user client devices.

The cost of image processing is largely proportional to the variety ofend user client devices. If there are 32 different kinds of end userdevices, for example, the original image may be reproduced for each ofthe 32 categories of different end user client device capability. Ifthere are C logically separate and independent cache hierarchiesestablished for the content provider, the maximum overhead O ofprocessing of image i will be:

$\begin{matrix}{\bigcap\limits_{i^{\max}}{= {C \times O_{i}}}} & \left( {{Equation}\mspace{14mu} 1} \right)\end{matrix}$

Where O_(i) is the overall cost of real-time and offline processing ofthe image i.

Processing Images at Scale

When a content provider has a large number of images on a website, thesimple linear multiplication by C in Equation 1 above becomessubstantial in magnitude. For example, in case of C=5 and a contentprovider with i=200 million images, the formula states that imageprocessing will be performed 1 billion times just for the initialestablishment of the web images within the CDN for this single contentprovider. This is without considering cache eviction-induced additionalreprocessing.

Social media and user generated content websites must handle many imageuploaded by users. If the image networks are serving a group of contentproviders, which have a total website images in the scale of 10-100billions, and 10% of the web images are churning everyday, meaning thatabout 10% of them are newly uploaded everyday, the daily workloadimposed to the image cache hierarchies just by the new uploads will be5*(1 to 10) billion times of the image processing.

In theory, decrementing the value of C by a small amount would save alarge scale deployment of image cache networks and servers, because inEquation 1 the value of C is magnified i times, and i is typically verylarge.

Impact on Content Provider Origin

A content provider incurs costs in data center operation. One importantportion of the data center operation cost comes from the network usagein terms of bandwidth cost. For a content provider with a large numberof website images, the efficiency of the cache hierarchy and of thevalue C affects operational cost. The best case for the content provideris obviously the case, where C is 1.

Cache and Origin Collaboration

Solutions to the cache-management problems set forth above are nowdescribed.

One method to achieve better caching, and more efficient image delivery,is to enhance cache and origin server collaboration. As seen in FIG. 6,an image can be fetched multiple times from the origin server, based onforward requests from multiple cache hierarchies. Furthermore, thedelivery of images poses a particular and added overhead to the CDN inthe course of processing, as shown in FIGS. 4-5. This additional imageoptimization overhead is sizable both in response time and the overallcost of image server cluster construction, operation and management. Itshould be understood that other kinds of compute-heavy object processing(e.g., edge assembly of web objects into a page, video transcode, etc.)are similarly burdensome and can be benefit from the teachings hereof;the example of an image on a website is merely used for explanatorypurposes.

The cache and origin collaboration proposed in this document provides away in an effort to minimize the additional overhead of imageoptimization in the course of HTTP response. An embodiment of a highlevel workflow is shown in FIG. 7; a description of the workflowfollows.

-   -   1) Arrow 1: an HTTP request for a web image is made from Cache        Server A at the top of the CDN cache hierarchy 1 to the origin        server;    -   2) Arrow 1: upon receiving the request, the origin server finds        the original image requested from its back end image store;    -   3) If the requested image is tagged with some piece of        information about the last request served (referred to as a        cache hint), the origin server constructs a response message        using the cache hint without an original image file;    -   4) If the requested image is not tagged, the origin server        constructs a response message using an original image file;    -   5) Arrow 2: a response message is sent back to the Cache Server        A;    -   6) Arrow 2: Cache Server A receives the response message;    -   7) If the response message contains an image file, the regular        workflow of FIGS. 4-5 is followed;    -   8) If the response message contains only the cache hint, Cache        Server A extracts more details from the cache hint, interprets        the details, and makes a decision about where to fetch either an        original copy or an optimized version of the image based on        those details;    -   9) Arrow 3: Cache Server A sends an HTTP request to another        cache server, Cache Server B, which is identified using the        information the cache hint that was received from the origin        server;    -   10) Arrow 4: Cache Server B replies back to Cache Server A with        either an original or the requested optimized version image;    -   11) Arrow 4: if Cache Server A receives an optimized version, it        serves the optimized image to the client bypassing the process        and overhead of image optimization in the course of response;    -   12) Arrow 4: if Cache Server A receives an original version, it        follows the regular workflow of FIGS. 4-5;    -   13) Arrow 4: if neither an original nor the requested optimized        version is not found, Cache Server B replies to Cache Server A        with the HTTP status code 404 ‘Not Found’;    -   14) Arrow 5: upon receiving an HTTP 404 from Cache Server B,        Cache Server A creates a new cache hint, constructs another HTTP        request for the original image with the cache hint, sends it to        the origin server;    -   15) Arrow 5: the origin receives the HTTP request for an image        and the cache hint;    -   16) Arrow 6: the origin responds to Cache Server A with a copy        of the original image, and, tags the original image file with        the new cache hint.

Cache Hint

Preferably, the cache hint is a piece of information based on whichCache Server A can identify and contact Cache Server B. Because thecache hint preferably functions to point Cache Server A to a serverwhich may have the image cached, the cache hint is referred to as a‘pointer’.

Pointers may be direct or indirect. An example of a direct pointer is anIP address. An indirect form of a pointer can be a hostname, e.g. aCNAME (canonical name in RFC 1034). The teachings hereof are not limitedto any particular format. Different CDN providers can use different formof information. Moreover, the cache hint may point to a cache server,cache child, a cache group, to a real-time or offline image processingserver, or any CDN asset.

Preferably, a cache server going to the origin server constructs thecache hint by inserting a pointer to itself, as it will expect to getthe original image from the origin server. Alternatively, it canconstruct the cache hint with an address or hostname or otherinformation that points to another server in the CDN, such as thereal-time or offline image processing server, that the cache server willuse, knowing that the original and optimized and/or derived images willbe there shortly. If the cache server constructing the cache hint is acache parent fetching on behalf of a child, it may insert a pointer tothe cache child that is requesting the original image.

The cache hint can be encrypted for security purposes so that theinformation about which cache server has which image copies remainhidden from outside observers. The content provider origin can associatethis cache hint with the image requested. The association can be made bystoring it with the image, or by utilizing a separate database thatstores cache hints for origin server objects.

Currently, HTTP standards do not provide for a cache hint of the naturedescribed in this document. The teachings hereof can be implementedusing standard HTTP features, however. One example of an implementationis to use a non-standard form of header in both HTTP request andresponse. This is referred to as an X-header. More specifically, anexample is to use a key value pair as follows:

X-Cache-Hint: [encrypted value]

The value of “X-Cache-Hint” can be the IP address of a cache server tosave the name resolution time. Further, in addition to the IP address,the value of “X-Cache-Hint” in reality is likely to contain otherinformation to facilitate the finding of the previous cache server(e.g., Cache Server B in FIG. 7). This means that the cache hint is notlimited to one item of information. As FIG. 7 suggests, the additionalinformation will be the information, with which Cache Server A canidentify and contact Cache Server B. Here is a concrete example of a setof information in a cache hint pointing to Cache Server B:

-   -   1) The IP address of Cache Server B;    -   2) The cluster ID Cache Server B belongs to (which is Cluster        2.1 in FIG. 7);    -   3) The cache hierarchy ID that Cluster 2.1 belongs to at the top        of the hierarchy (which is Cache Hierarchy 2 in FIG. 7);    -   4) The datacenter ID the top cluster belongs to (this is not        shown in FIG. 7)

A cache hierarchy often extends from one geographic location to anotheron the globe. As such, it is likely that clusters towards to the contentprovider origin and clusters towards to the end user are geographicallyfar away from each other. This means that one cache hierarchy isdynamically formed from a set of datacenters. This is why it thedatacenter information can be useful to include in the cache hint.

Cache Availability at Another Cache

Caching or cache eviction algorithms are generally dynamic. Frequentlyreferenced objects typically have higher chances of being available at acache server and vice versa. One well-known example of a cache evictionalgorithm is LRU (least recently used), in which less frequentlyrequested objects are evicted first when cache space is constrained. So,when Cache Server A goes to Cache Server B in FIG. 7, there is not anabsolute guarantee of cached object availability at Cache Server B.

Arrows 5 and 6 are followed in case the requested object is not found atCache Server B. In this case, Arrows 1, 2, 3 and 4 all end up in abranch that causes an overhead, which is a cost of cache and origincollaboration. Hence, the efficiency of this proposal is upper boundedby the false positives, where the requested object is not found at theother cache server, suggested in the cache hint.

In light of the above, Cache Server A needs to make a decision uponreceiving the cache hint from the origin about which action to takenext. If Cache Server A determines that there is high chance ofavailability at Cache Server B, it generates Arrow 3. Otherwise itgenerates Arrow 5, bypassing Arrow 3. The decision is preferably basedupon the caching algorithm specifics of the CDN provider.

One practical way to minimize the false positive case is to use the HTTPmessage header for the TTL (time to live) to specify the lifetime of thecache hint. The origin server will expire (or will not send) the cachehint when the cache hint passes the TTL. In case of expiry, Arrow 2 willcontain a copy of the original image without cache hint.

Using this approach, two new headers can appear in the HTTP request asfollows.

X-Cache-Hint: encrypted value

X-Cache-Hint-TTL: 86,400 (in seconds)

Effects of the Cache and Origin Collaboration

The effectiveness of cache and origin collaboration is maximized whenthe top portion of the cache hierarchies are coexisting in the samedatacenter, such as “Datacenter X” as in FIG. 8. This is because thebandwidth cost for Arrows 3 and 4 in FIG. 7 is low.

Given that the top portion of each cache hierarchy itself can be acluster the cached object sharing between the cache hierarchies will behighly effective by the help of a cache hint stored and served by theorigin server. The cache hint is likely to be pointing a cache server inthe cluster or at least in the datacenter, which recently retrieved theoriginal image from the origin. As a matter of fact, in many largecities, this scenario of deployment is commonly found. Without thecollaboration with origin server, to achieve the same level cachedobject sharing by cache hint, another complicated functional entitywould be needed which is able to tell which datacenter and servertherein has which objects at any given moment.

When a requesting cache server itself is capable of image optimization,in this scenario, the overhead of dynamic image optimization can beeasily avoided since, in FIG. 7, Cache Server B can not only convert anoriginal image to a set of derivatives but also store the optimizedversions locally in its cache. Such cache servers may utilize GPUs forimage processing; see also U.S. Pat. No. 7,653,706, the disclosure ofwhich is incorporated herein by reference.

Given a cache hint, the cost of contacting another cache server is nowdiscussed. One might posit that the cost of contacting another cacheserver could be higher than the combined cost of contacting the originserver and performing dynamic image optimization and/or rendering abundle of derived versions. An example of a logical flow at a cacheserver is given using FIG. 9 as follows:

-   -   1) Cache Server C sends a request to the origin (Arrow 11);    -   2) Soon, Cache Server C receives a response with cache hint        (Arrow 12);    -   3) Cache Server C extracts the contact information of another        cache, Cache Server B, which is likely to have either an        original or an optimized version of the request image;    -   4) Cache Server C compares the expected network cost of        contacting Cache Server B and the expected overall cost of        dynamic image optimization;    -   5) If the cost of contacting Cache Server B is not considerably        smaller than the combined cost of contacting the origin and        dynamic image optimization, Cache Server C does not request the        object from Cache Server B (Arrow 13); instead, Cache Server C        generates another HTTP request;    -   6) Cache Server C receives a response with a copy of the        original image from the origin (Arrow 15);    -   7) The origin server tags the original image file with the cache        hint from Cache Server C.

The teachings hereof are agnostic to the specific method of costdetermination for contacting another cache server and dynamic imageoptimization. Different CDN providers have different cost modelsdepending on the CDN server deployment and caching algorithms.

The cache hint preferably carries sufficient information to help make adecisive cost comparison. The example given above for the content ofcache hint (IP address, cluster ID, cache hierarchy ID, datacenter ID)is one effective practical example. FIG. 9 shows the case of leasteffectiveness of this proposal, in a scenario in which the image serverand cache server are physically separated. In this case, the maximumbenefit of this proposal will be the bandwidth reduction at origin bythe virtue of original image sharing between cache hierarchies.

Of course, the content provider can save on bandwidth usage at theorigin infrastructure by associating the original image file with cachehint. Given that the bandwidth cost is generally proportional to thetotal number of bits, even with for example a 50% probability of thecache hint effectiveness for each image request, the content providercan potentially reduce the bandwidth cost in half. The bandwidth usagefor cache hint is a relatively small fraction of that for images.Website image sizes are usually a few hundreds of thousands of bytes.

The CDN can also reduce the cost for image optimization and delivery. Ifall image content providers participate in this proposal, and, thedynamic image optimization events are reduced in half, the entireinfrastructure for the image optimization and delivery would potentiallybe reduced in half, too.

Group Key for Cache Hint

To extract the contact information of another cache server from thecache hint, a mechanism for group key management is needed so that anymember server can encrypt the information for cache hint, and, any othermember server can decrypt the cache hint.

Group key management is a well establishment research topic andindustrial practice. One recent work on group key agreement can be foundin Y. Kim, et al., “Tree-based Group Key Agreement,” ACM Transactions onInformation and System Security, pp. 60-96, Feb. 2004, as an example.

Cache and origin collaboration proposed in this paper does not createany new challenge to the well established practice. The group size inthis proposal is estimated to grow to the scale of a few hundreds ofcache servers, which is a relatively small size to create a newchallenge in group key management.

As it is usual to observe a daily pattern in the retrieving trafficvolume of content providers, a daily rotation of the group key ispractical.

In sum, potential advantages provided by the teachings hereof includebandwidth cost reduction by the content provider and by the CDN, dynamicimage optimization cost reduction, image download performanceimprovement. The foregoing are characteristics and potential benefitsthat may be achieved in certain embodiments of the invention; theyshould not be viewed as necessary to the practice of the invention.

Quantifying Bandwidth Savings

The potential cost savings can be quantified and provided to warycontent providers to show the value of the teachings hereof. The costsavings developed here are general in nature and by way of illustrationto show potential advantages of the invention; they are not intended tobe rigorous analyses of cost and achieving these or any particular costsavings are not required to practice the teachings hereof.

The total bandwidth cost at the content provider side with the cachehint in place is given byB _(tot) ¹=(H×S _(image) +S _(hint))×R  (Equation 2)

Where B_(tot) ¹ is the total number of bits with the cache hint, H issuccess ratio of cache hint (Cache Server A found Cache Server B withthe desired content), S_(image) is the average size of original images,S_(hint) is the cache hint size, and R is the total number of requestsserved.

Total bandwidth cost without the cache hint is simply given by:B _(tot) ² =S _(image) ×R  (Equation 3)

In one embodiment, a size of cache hint may be about 64 bytes (32 bytesfor IPv6 and another 32 bytes for CDN specifics); this is generallymultiple orders of magnitude smaller in comparison to the size ofaverage original web images about 500,000 bytes.

So the bandwidth cost reduction ratio at the content provider side canbe expressed as:(B _(tot) ² −B _(tot) ¹)/B _(tot) ²  (Equation 4)

This is given by H with an error margin of about 0.01%. For largecontent providers, even 10% success ratio would result in a substantialbandwidth cost saving due to the very large volume of traffic.

The total bandwidth cost reduction at the CDN side is given byB _(tot) ³=(α×H×S _(image)+(1−H)×S _(image) +S _(hint))×R  (Equation 5)

Where, α is the per-bit cost ratio between fetching from another cluster(Cache Server B in FIG. 7) and fetching from the origin server. Thevalue of a will be low for cases exemplified in FIG. 8. For example,with H 0.5 and α 0.5, the bandwidth cost reduction at the CDN side willbe about 25%. Note that in this example, the bandwidth cost reduction atthe content provider side will be 50%. Adding the two reductionstogether, the entire system will be much more bandwidth efficient, whichwill eventually benefit the end user. In the most favorable case, wherethe CDN can bypass the dynamic image optimization process with Hprobability in the course of HTTP response, the total CDN infrastructurecost for web image optimization and delivery could be down bypotentially 100×H %.

Computer Based Implementation

The teachings hereof may be implemented with conventional computersystems, but modified by the teachings hereof, with the functionalcharacteristics described above realized in special-purpose hardware,general-purpose hardware configured by software stored therein forspecial purposes, or a combination thereof.

Software may include one or several discrete programs. Any givenfunction may comprise part of any given module, process, executionthread, or other such programming construct. Generalizing, each functiondescribed above may be implemented as computer code, namely, as a set ofcomputer instructions, executable in one or more microprocessors toprovide a special purpose machine. The code may be executed using anapparatus—such as a microprocessor in a computer, digital dataprocessing device, or other computing apparatus—as modified by theteachings hereof. In one embodiment, such software may be implemented ina programming language that runs in conjunction with a proxy on astandard Intel hardware platform running an operating system such asLinux. The functionality may be built into the proxy code, or it may beexecuted as an adjunct to that code, such as the “interpreter”referenced above.

While in some cases above a particular order of operations performed bycertain embodiments is set forth, it should be understood that suchorder is exemplary and that they may be performed in a different order,combined, or the like. Moreover, some of the functions may be combinedor shared in given instructions, program sequences, code portions, andthe like. References in the specification to a given embodiment indicatethat the embodiment described may include a particular feature,structure, or characteristic, but every embodiment may not necessarilyinclude the particular feature, structure, or characteristic.

FIG. 10 is a block diagram that illustrates hardware in a computersystem 1000 upon which such software may run in order to implementembodiments of the invention. The computer system 1000 may be embodiedin a client device, server, personal computer, workstation, tabletcomputer, mobile or wireless device such as a smartphone, networkdevice, router, hub, gateway, or other device. Representative machineson which the subject matter herein is provided may be IntelPentium-based computers running a Linux or Linux-variant operatingsystem and one or more applications to carry out the describedfunctionality.

Computer system 1000 includes a microprocessor 1004 coupled to bus 1001.In some systems, multiple processor and/or processor cores may beemployed. Computer system 1000 further includes a main memory 1010, suchas a random access memory (RAM) or other storage device, coupled to thebus 1001 for storing information and instructions to be executed byprocessor 1004. A read only memory (ROM) 1008 is coupled to the bus 1001for storing information and instructions for processor 1004. Anon-volatile storage device 1006, such as a magnetic disk, solid statememory (e.g., flash memory), or optical disk, is provided and coupled tobus 1001 for storing information and instructions. Otherapplication-specific integrated circuits (ASICs), field programmablegate arrays (FPGAs) or circuitry may be included in the computer system1000 to perform functions described herein.

A peripheral interface 1012 communicatively couples computer system 1000to a user display 1014 that displays the output of software executing onthe computer system, and an input device 1015 (e.g., a keyboard, mouse,trackpad, touchscreen) that communicates user input and instructions tothe computer system 1000. The peripheral interface 1012 may includeinterface circuitry, control and/or level-shifting logic for local busessuch as RS-485, Universal Serial Bus (USB), IEEE 1394, or othercommunication links.

Computer system 1000 is coupled to a communication interface 1016 thatprovides a link (e.g., at a physical layer, data link layer) between thesystem bus 1001 and an external communication link. The communicationinterface 1016 provides a network link 1018. The communication interface1016 may represent a Ethernet or other network interface card (NIC), awireless interface, modem, an optical interface, or other kind ofinput/output interface.

Network link 1018 provides data communication through one or morenetworks to other devices. Such devices include other computer systemsthat are part of a local area network (LAN) 1026. Furthermore, thenetwork link 1018 provides a link, via an internet service provider(ISP) 1020, to the Internet 1022. In turn, the Internet 1022 may providea link to other computing systems such as a remote server 1030 and/or aremote client 1031. Network link 1018 and such networks may transmitdata using packet-switched, circuit-switched, or other data-transmissionapproaches.

In operation, the computer system 1000 may implement the functionalitydescribed herein as a result of the processor executing code. Such codemay be read from or stored on a non-transitory computer-readable medium,such as memory 1010, ROM 1008, or storage device 1006. Other forms ofnon-transitory computer-readable media include disks, tapes, magneticmedia, CD-ROMs, optical media, RAM, PROM, EPROM, and EEPROM. Any othernon-transitory computer-readable medium may be employed. Executing codemay also be read from network link 1018 (e.g., following storage in aninterface buffer, local memory, or other circuitry).

It should be understood that the foregoing has presented certainembodiments of the invention that should not be construed as limiting.For example, certain language, syntax, and instructions have beenpresented above for illustrative purposes, and they should not beconstrued as limiting. It is contemplated that those skilled in the artwill recognize other possible implementations in view of this disclosureand in accordance with its scope and spirit. The appended claims definethe subject matter for which protection is sought.

It is noted that trademarks appearing herein are the property of theirrespective owners and used for identification and descriptive purposesonly, given the nature of the subject matter at issue, and not to implyendorsement or affiliation in any way.

The invention claimed is:
 1. A method executed by a cache server in acontent delivery network, the method comprising: receiving a firstrequest for an original object, the first request being from a client;determining (i) that the first request should be satisfied by servingthe client a version of the original object distinct from the originalobject; determining (ii) that the cache server cannot serve the versionof the original object distinct from the original object from its localcache to the client, and responsive to said determinations (i) and (ii),sending a second request for the original object to an origin server;and, receiving a response to the second request, the response comprisinga pointer enabling the cache server to determine a location of at leastone of: the original object and the version of the original objectdistinct from the original object, within the content delivery network,the location being distinct from the client and the cache server and theorigin server.
 2. The method of claim 1, further comprising: responsiveto receiving the pointer, executing a cost calculation to determinewhether to request the at least one of: the original object and theversion of the original object distinct from the original object, fromthe location in the content delivery network determined from thepointer.
 3. The method of claim 2, wherein the cost calculation includesconsideration of bandwidth cost in contacting the location identified bythe pointer.
 4. The method of claim 1, wherein the cache server sendsthe second request to an origin server associated with the originalobject.
 5. The method of claim 4, wherein the cache server receives theresponse to the second request from the origin server.
 6. The method ofclaim 1, wherein the original object comprises an image and the versionof the original object distinct from the original object comprises amodified image.
 7. The method of claim 1, wherein the original objectcomprises a multimedia presentation and the version of the originalobject distinct from the original object comprises a transcodedmultimedia presentation.
 8. The method of claim 1, wherein the clientcomprises any of: an end user client and another cache server in thecontent delivery network.
 9. The method of claim 1, wherein the pointerenables the cache server to locate the version of the original objectdistinct from the original object within the content delivery network.10. A non-transitory computer-readable medium holding computer programinstructions for execution on one or more processors in a cache serverin a content delivery network, the computer program instructionsincluding instructions for causing the cache server to: receive a firstrequest for an original object, the first request being from a client;determine (i) that the first request should be satisfied by serving theclient a version of the original object distinct from the originalobject; and, determine (ii) that the cache server cannot serve theversion of the original object distinct from the original object fromits local cache to the client, and responsive to said determinations (i)and (ii), send a second request for the original object to an originserver; and, receive a response to the second request, the responsecomprising a pointer enabling the cache server to determine a locationof at least one of: the original object and the version of the originalobject distinct from the original object, within the content deliverynetwork, the location being distinct from the client and the cacheserver and the origin server.
 11. A method executed by a cache server ina content delivery network, the method comprising: receiving a firstrequest from a client; determining that an object responsive to thefirst request cannot be served from a local cache of the cache server;responsive to said determination, sending a second request to an originserver associated with the object; and, receiving a response to thesecond request, the response comprising a pointer enabling the cacheserver to determine a location of the object, previously generated,within the content delivery network, the location being distinct fromthe client and the cache server and the origin server; wherein theobject was previously generated as a result of computer processing by aset of one or more servers in the content delivery network.
 12. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the object comprises an image.
 13. Themethod of claim 11, wherein the object comprises a multimediapresentation.